Statement by the Yabloko Gender Faction, 15.06.2021

Photo: Halimat Taramova / screenshot of the publication on Svetlana Anokhina’s Instagram page

On 10 June, Chechen and Dagestan security forces broke into a crisis centre in Makhachkala, Dagestan, kidnapping Khalimat Taramova and her girlfriend Anna Manylova (the latter was later released). Human rights defender Svetlana Anokhina and volunteers of the crisis center were detained together with them.

Khalimat Taramova was beaten in Chechnya, she was forced to marry because of her sexual orientation; earlier the police took away her documents: her domestic and foreign passports.

Human rights organisations involved in the evacuation of LGBT people from Chechnya report that the authorities are passing off LGBT people as terrorists of the Islamic State banned in Russia. Thus, Salekh Magamadov and Ismail Isayev were arrested on suspicion of involvement in terrorism.

The persecution of people with a different sexual orientation is an obvious violation of human rights, the security forces commit crimes against the individual, in flagrant violation of Russian law.

Earlier, the Yabloko party and Yabloko’s Gender Faction demanded an end to the genocide of the LGBT community in Chechnya. We appeal to the Chechen authorities with a demand to immediately release Khalimat Taramova, Salekh Magamadov and Ismail Isayev, as well as all other representatives of the LGBT community.

The Investigative Committee and the Public Prosecutor General’s Office must investigate and bring to justice the security forces who violate the Constitution and Russian law.

Galina Mikhaleva,

Chairwoman of the Gender Faction of the Yabloko party,

Earlier Boris Vishnevsky, the head of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg and Deputy Chairman of the Yabloko party, called on the Public Prosecutor General to urgently check the lawfulness of the detention of Khalimat Taramova and other victims of domestic violence.